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Finished all of Borges' fiction (5 total in July)
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:37 AM Author: citrine abusive halford Grabbed the big omnibus of all his fiction earlier this year after a friend recommended him. Besides fitting into the short-fiction kick I'll likely be pursuing for the next few months, he also marks my first serious foray into Latin American literature.
Overall, as far as the major individual collections go, I rate them Ficciones > The Book of Sand > The Aleph > Brodie's Report > A Universal History of Iniquity. They were all good, though Ficciones was clearly the best imo, and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" was by far my favorite story. Besides that one, just about everything in Ficciones was superb. I will also single out "The Other Death," "Averroes' Search," "The Interloper," and "The Gospel According to Mark" as stories I found particularly memorable. Borges is probably most famous for his fantasy but I generally found those less compelling than his more realistic stories and his fake translations/book reviews. As far as pure enjoyment goes, I think a lot of the fantasy stories would have benefited from the comic undertone that existed in "Pierre Menard." Borges could clearly be extremely funny but only a few of his stories really went in that direction. Instead, some really fantastical stories like The Book of Sand stay rather serious or even go for a horror vibe. They're still good, but I think they could have been more enjoyable without erasing the themes Borges was pursuing.
Still, highly recommended to XOpos. Busy lawyers may appreciate that even Borges' longest story is only 14 pages long. |
Date: July 16th, 2018 1:39 AM Author: Sienna Cuck Chapel Never read any. You talked about his fantasy works. Does he do the magical realism thing like Garcia Marquez, or something different? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434905) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:46 AM Author: citrine abusive halford Borges is routinely classed as a magical realist or as a forerunner to them, but I haven't read Garcia Marquez or the other big MR names so I can't say how he compares to them. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434923) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:53 AM Author: Sienna Cuck Chapel I’ve meant to read him before, seems like a big gap, thanks for the reminder. Mario Vargas Llosa, who later ran for President of Peru, was supposedly very seriously influenced by Borges’s writing, and I love Vargas Llosa. Where do I start with Borges? Do you have a suggested order? |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:59 AM Author: citrine abusive halford Borges' entire fictional oeuvre fits into a single 500-page book. I just got the Collected Fictions and read him chronologically which seemed perfectly fine. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434940) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:07 AM Author: Sienna Cuck Chapel just ordered ty (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434961) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:08 AM Author: citrine abusive halford 180 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434965) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 9:52 AM Author: federal purple incel His work ain't magical realism (which is just social melodrama with supernatural elements added for maukish sentimentality). I would class him as weird fiction. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36435797) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:50 AM Author: Wild stirring senate useless brakes Do you feel like a different person after reading his work? Did he give you a different perspective on something, marked you in some way? Or is this something you will forget in 3 months and feel like you never read anything? (It's happened to me with Classics, so I feel weird about reading them now.) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434926) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:57 AM Author: citrine abusive halford Hmmm. His work was definitely entertaining and memorable, but I think it's a stretch to say I've become a different person for reading it. His more bold thoughts on identity, infinity, etc. were nifty but, at least for me, not the sort of thing that changes one's life. Of all the writers I've read so far this year, I'd say Evelyn Waugh and Michel Houellebecq had the most substantial impact by a solid margin, I'd say. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434936) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:02 AM Author: Wild stirring senate useless brakes How are you choosing who to read? I am trying to get in the habit of reading quite a lot more often, but I need to have some kind of order or genre.
I haven't read all the classics, so I might want to start with those, but I also want to read some relatively recent stuff.
What do you recommend?
BTW, why did you decide to go for Spanish-speaking authors? |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 9:35 AM Author: citrine abusive halford Just read what interests you. If that’s the classics, go for it. I have a few broad goals for my reading this year: Read classic sci-fi, read a book or two about Islam, fill in some of the gaps in my historical knowledge, and read through my large collection of short fiction. But they’re loose goals and get delayed for what interests me at the moment all the time. If you want a more deliberate structure, you’ll have to decide it on your own.
I didn’t specifically choose a Spanish author; I mainly read Borges because I’m doing a variety of short fiction. Besides him I’ll probably be doing Flannery O’Connor, Evelyn Waugh, Philip Dick, and a few others. |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:34 AM Author: Wild stirring senate useless brakes (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36435036) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:01 AM Author: dead razzmatazz french chef stage for someone who reads a lot you sure dont write in a very compelling, interesting way.
very matter of fact, no flair at all. what gives? |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:11 AM Author: citrine abusive halford I am in fact a terrible writer, but the notion that good writing requires "flair" is HS English teacher flame. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36434976) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:35 AM Author: Wild stirring senate useless brakes Are you a great writer? I used to write extremely well in college, but then I lost that spark somehow. I don't know what happened to me. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36435038) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:38 AM Author: dead razzmatazz french chef stage im no writer.
chandler is our resident literary guru. i was only expecting at least some individual style from a person that reads a ton. |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 9:39 AM Author: at-the-ready lime theater stage borges' concision and density of ideas is remarkable. Pierre Menard is up there for his POTUS story but I also love the Aleph - which is probably his "funniest" story - and Garden of the Forking Path.
I love how Borges takes a central theme and reconsiders it again and again in the context of different stories. Library of Babel, Aleph, Book of Sands, and even Garden of the Forking Path all touch on the same basic concept but in different ways, from different points of view. (Should add Funes the Memorious which is also funny in its way) |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 1:44 PM Author: citrine abusive halford I didn't like The Aleph too much the first time through, perhaps because based on the title I was expecting a more utterly fantastic story (a la The Immortal or something), but on a reread where I appreciated it for its own merits it was really entertaining.
Garden of Forking Paths was okay but a good example of a story that I think would have been better with a more comedic element. Like imagine a fake literary review of a guy describing a Chinese novel that is 46,000 pages long and advances the plot only three days, etc. |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:13 PM Author: at-the-ready lime theater stage the Aleph absolutely GAPES Dante who I think is the best writer in history.
ps for bonus points, to what extent was Borges a "Catholic" writer. explain ur reasoning |
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Date: July 16th, 2018 2:28 PM Author: citrine abusive halford Honestly even after reading all his fiction I don't feel qualified to answer that question. I don't know enough about his personal beliefs (which seemed in flux) and he has so many influences it's hard to call even his more overtly religious content explicitly Catholic. Even if he grew up in Scotland or Russia or India I think his sheer love of esotericism would have drawn him toward similar themes. For the most part, when Catholic stuff shows up it's just a superficial detail in a realistic story (I recall two or three characters who promised their mother to pray a Pater Noster each day). (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#36438096) |
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Date: April 7th, 2020 9:14 PM Author: Gaped blood rage (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4027018&forum_id=2#39965009) |